From Our Files: Bren gun encounter... mayhem at the manor... missing Noddy
75 YEARS AGO
DOCTORS in our Borough and district, and throughout the country, are gravely perturbed over the Government’s new Health Act, which is due to come into force next July.
Locally, they unanimously condemn the Act as it stands, both from the patients’ stand-point and from that of the medical profession.
One local medical man – Dr A. R. O. Denton, New Milton – felt so strongly against the provisions of the Act that he has disposed of his practice and sailed for Kenya, where he will be free to “work the art of medicine without interference”.
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SAPPER Albert Ogan, who has been working with the 16th Bomb Disposal Squad stationed at Hursley, Winchester, which is clearing up the minefield at Becton Bunny, was knocked down and run over by a Bren gun carrier which he was starting up on Monday afternoon.
It is a strange coincidence that Ogan, although not a nervous man, as is proved by the nature of his work, had a rooted objection to Bren gun carriers and if it was possible to avoid going near one he would do so.
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DAMAGE and arson amounting to many hundreds of pounds have been discovered at Ossemsley Manor, New Milton, formerly the home of Lady Gatty, which was requisitioned for troops during the war and which is now owned by a London company.
Electric light fittings had been torn from the walls, woodwork, including a carved oak staircase, had been slashed with some sort of instrument, and the roof had also been smashed with something very heavy.
50 YEARS AGO
THIS year was to have been the jubilee year of New Milton Carnival – but the carnival is no more. Failure to find a suitable open space, despite intensive enquiries, led the carnival committee to decide at a meeting on Monday to wind up the carnival.
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THE number of accidents due to drivers being under the influence of drink doubled in Hampshire in the July to September quarter, 1972, compared with the same quarter in 1971.
These rose from 36 to 75, an increase of 108 per cent.
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A REWARD has been offered for the safe return of Noddy, a two-feet high gnome wearing a red coat and blue pointed hat, who disappeared from New Milton on Monday.
Noddy was last seen in his shiny red and blue car outside Fagans, the outfitters, in Station Road where he had been parked since the previous Wednesday collecting money for the Arthritis & Rheumatism Council for Research, of which he is the symbol.
25 YEARS AGO
Yet another film epic has come to the screens depicting that famous maritime disaster, the sinking of the liner Titanic. Publicists of the $200m film are again claiming the sinking to be the greatest British shipping disaster – all of which is causing distress to Harry Pettit, of Barton. He was on the troopship Lancastria which was dive-bombed and sunk off the French coast on 17th June 1940, when more than 4,500 were drowned.
“Its immensity caused Winston Churchill to issue an order banning publication resulting, to this day, in almost complete ignorance of the tragedy on the part of the British public,” says Harry.
A sergeant in the Royal Army Service Corps at the time, Harry nearly went down with the ship.
“I was being sucked down and thinking it’s taking a hell of a time to go down, how long is it going to take to die?” he said. “Suddenly I shot up to the top, like a cork out of a bottle.”
The photograph shows the stricken troopship lying on her side, with men just visible clinging to her hull.
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A CALL for dog owners to keep their pets under proper control has been made by New Milton town councillors after a complaint from a woman in Barton that dogs off leads have twice tried to grab her handbag.
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THE 2,500 members of the New Forest Agricultural Show Society are being asked for their views on a dress code for the members' only enclosure at the three-day show’s New Park, Brockenhurst, venue.
Dress guidelines have been suggested for several years following complaints over half-naked and scantily dressed showgoers.
